Creative Influences
For this part of my project I have taken influence from artists such as Hamish Fulton, On Kawara, and from an exhibition I went to at the start of this unit – Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov. I enjoy the seemingly vague nature of their work, when consideration on the concept of the work is accounted for. For example – On Kawara created specific paintings, that detailed aspects of the creation process itself. Hamish Fulton uses text, diagrams, and other mediums of display, to illustrate walking routes.
Another reference was my mini-project for this unit – To/From/To – A Walk. It was from enjoying the process, and the visual outcomes for this piece that I decided tackle the documentation of Greater London & the City’s town centres in the following way.
Process
As I have been travelling around London and documenting town centres so far, there have been other ways in which I have planned, and documented the time spent in addition to the footage I am acquiring from each location.
Prior to leaving for a trip around a borough, I plan my route; using my usual, go-to for every day travelling around London – Citymapper. I look at the list of towns within the borough I am intending to visit, and aim to start at the furthest away point from where I live. I look at the journey there, and see if there are any documentable points directly on route, and in this way from town centre to town centre, I make another list on the Notes app of my phone; putting each place into the order I will visit them, along with the mode/s of transport I’ll take between each location.
As I go around documenting the town centres outlined in the London Plan, I tick each one from my list when I have captured some footage. Before I move on I listen out for an overheard quote, and write it down in the previously created note that outlines the route and each stop.
When I get home from having documented a series of town centres within a borough, I open the Maps app on my laptop and scroll / zoom out over the area I have just covered. I then zoom in slightly, to get a more detailed view of the streets between stops, and often this means separating the map into two sections. I save a screenshot of the map sections that show the areas I have gathered footage from, and adjust the contrast and brightness to create a clearer difference between the roads on the map and the spaces around them. I then print the sections of the map onto plain, A3 paper.
I place the printed map sections together, by lining up the overlapping roads and attach the pages using masking tape, before I put them onto a light-board, and place blank, A3 sheets of paper over the top to trace my route onto. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get each correct turn, but I use CityMapper and the created planning Note on my phone from the day, to help remember my exact routes taken. I often make mistakes and am somewhat of a perfectionist, who also presses too hard with a pencil and indents the page… so once I have the correct route and stops drawn out in pencil, I trace over it again onto new A3 paper to ensure there are minimal human-errors visible on the final piece.
I feel for this work that precision creates a satisfying visual, and is certainly satisfying for myself to create, knowing each turn is exactly where it should be according to the map.
Visual Outcomes
Reflective Points
Visually I like the simplicity of black ink on a white page, and the bold, shifting line representing my taken route on the day. Having looked at many different graphic styles used when displaying information prior to beginning the details of this project; I was drawn to the use of symbols, and keen to find a way of conveying information using something similar, to represent time or place perhaps. I’m interested in data-entry as a means of storytelling, and therefore art that is created with that purpose/ context. To include symbols in this project felt an obvious move, especially as so often maps include symbols and/ or codes for things. I decided to include a different/ individual code per drawn route, as a way of highlighting the different modes of transport used for each journey.
Interestingly, people I have shown this work to seem to interpret the drawings in different ways. Some people engaging more with the handwritten text on the page and noting that it’s very neatly written. This neat handwriting, again, feels like a visual device I wish to use in order to portray the obsessive nature of my passion for London, and for documentation.
Some people have commented that they see images in the routes I have taken, and I wonder to a degree if this is something I can explore further on an experimental trip – to see if I can perhaps make certain shapes by taking certain routes.
I experimented with different backings for the drawn on A3 papers, including using black, A1 mount board, an A1 piece of MDF (chipboard), and even using the cardboard packaging the chipboard was delivered in, as a backing itself. My favourite of the three options is the black mount board because I like the contrast between that and the white pages, with black ink on them. I particularly enjoyed the effect of covering the entire wall in black mount board, before sticking the hand-drawn Route Maps onto it.
Initially I used masking tape, and blue-tack to connect the A3 papers and to stick them to the mount board/ MDF, as a cost-saving strategy. I actually quite like the effect and the feeling that it evokes of something laboured on. For further explanation – I feel anyone could do what I am doing, but not many people perhaps would care to go to every town centre listed within Greater London (& the City), but if they did – they could use all the materials I have used for the production of these Route Maps.
I am also interested in trying to add bold, splashes of colour into my final designs – although I’m unsure how exactly I will go about this yet (whether it be paper colour, backing, or a difference in the colour/s of ink used). This particular style idea is inspired by works by Hamish Fulton, such as Symbolic mountain. Twelve pieces of wood for: a twelve day walking journey in Ladakh crossing twelve mountain passes from Lamayura to Dras. India July, 1984, in which I think the use of colour used by Fulton creates an additional level of aesthetic satisfaction, as well as making the piece altogether more eye catching.
